Sunday, August 16, 2015

Teacher's Pet Training Academy: Creating a Visual or Tactile Marker

Creating a Visual or Tactile Marker

By Brianne Statz, CPDT-KA

If you’ve been in our classes, you probably know that the first thing
we talk about is teaching your dog a marker word.“Good”, “Good dog”, “Yes” – you pick a word
and then repeat the sequence of word followed by treat. In your dog’s brain, this creates a
connection between the word and excited feelings of eating yummy treats.Then, we use that marker word to communicate
to our dog when his behavior is going to result in a yummy treat, making those
good behaviors go up in frequency – yay!

But, let’s say your dog can’t hear you.Sometimes, dogs lose their hearing as they age, or sometimes, your dog is
at a distance or there is lots of other noise to interfere.If your dog makes a really excellent behavior
choice in this situation, you still want to be able to provide feedback.Here’s an example:Aussie Payton is looking out the picture
window while I’m outside mowing the front lawn.His neighborhood nemesis Chocolate lab goes bounding by on a leash.Payton watches calmly without barking.Hooray!But how do I communicate how much I loved his behavior when he can’t
hear me?A visual marker.

Teaching a visual marker is the same process as teaching a marker
word.Pick a visual marker.A thumbs up, a peace sign, an OK sign – it
can be whatever you want as long as it doesn’t look like a signal your dog
already knows (e.g. don’t use a flat palm if that’s what your stay signal looks
like).Show your dog the marker, then
feed a treat.Repeat until, eventually,
you show your dog the marker and he starts to look excited.In trainer speak, we call that a CER –
conditioned emotional response.Basically your dog knows something good is on the way when he sees that
signal.

You might also want to consider teaching a tactile marker.Dogs can lose vision with age, or
some dogs are born with both visual and auditory impairments (“double merle”
dogs often have these issues).These
dogs might benefit from learning a specific touch as a marker.Choose a touch that your dog doesn’t find
aversive (for example, many dogs dislike being patted on top of the head), and
follow it with a treat.For example,
touch the dog on the shoulder, then treat.Repeat until you get that CER (the “where’s my treat?” response), and
you’ve taught a tactile marker.

Now you
can communicate that you liked your dog’s behavior in any situation! Happy training!